The Big Bum

 This time around my job was made easier by watching yet another film; “The Beach Bum”, with Matthew McConaughey and many others.  Its resemblance to another film, much older but similar, “The Big Lebowski”, reminded me that I’d never actually reviewed the latter film.

The Big Lebowski (1998).  Jeff Bridges plays Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski, a stoner/bowler in L.A. who doesn’t seem to do much more than smoke weed and bowl with his comrades, Walter (John Goodman) and Donnie (Steve Buscemi).  Walter affects to be Jewish – citing all sorts of Orthodox restrictions on his conduct - when it was his ex-wife who was Jewish.  The group competes in bowling with an eccentric Latino, Jesus (John Turturro). 

The Dude is harassed by thugs who mistake him for another Lebowski, a rich man who lives nearby.  When he visits the man’s huge mansion and confronts his namesake about the inequity of the situation, a rug ruined by the thug’s gratuitous urination thereon, for which he demands restitution, he’s initially escorted out – until he’s summoned back later when Rich Lebowski sees fit to use him for his own ends.  And thereupon a series of amusing misadventures ensue – even including the Rich Lebowski’s daughter Maude (Julianne Moore), who tends to cut through most of the confusion of the plot, much to our relief. Although the Dude doesn’t seem to have any source of income or a livelihood, he somehow manages to pay rent and buy weed.  Even so, he still seems to have a sense of ethics and responsibility.  In that regard I much prefer the Dude to the Bum.

The Dude is based on a real, guy, Jeff Dowd, and some of the events in the movie are based on real ones, though I have no clue how much of them are, or which particular ones.  Even so, it’s a memorable and enjoyable film which repays multiple viewings.  Not only that, each of the major actors do a commendable role, and it belongs among Bridges’ more notable works.

Jesus Rolls (2020).  A later spinoff, taking Jesus (John Turturro’s characters) as its basis, adding in Bobby Cannavale and Audrey Tatou – plus some secrets like Christopher Walken, Pete Davidson, and Susan Sarandon – hell, even Jon “Mad Men” Hamm.  Apparently Turturro wanted his own film and the Coen brothers disagreed, so he bought the rights from them and had this done, the plot being a remake of an early 70s French film (“Going Places”, with Gerard Depardieu).  The film basically has Turturro, Cannavale and Tatou “going places” in different stolen cars with a variety of misadventures, none of which are particularly remarkable or memorable.  “The Dude” remarked at how his rug, since spoiled by urine, anchored his apartment, and on a grander scale, Bridges’ character itself anchored that film.  If you suspected that a Jesus film wouldn’t be worth watching more than once, and even then out of mere morbid curiosity, you’d be right.  Maybe a better spinoff would be to show us Donnie IN his element.  Maybe not. 

The Beach Bum (2019).  This film is apparently 100% fiction.  Unlike the “The Big Lebowski”, which takes place in L.A., this film takes place in Miami.  The central character is Moondog (Matthew McConaughey), a stoner poet who doesn’t seem to do much other than smoke weed continuously and quote others’ poetry as his own.  His daughter is getting married, and he almost misses the wedding having sex in a greasy spoon kitchen with a woman he just met.  His own wife, Minnie (Isla Fischer) carries on a thinly veiled affair with “Rie” (short for Lingerie) (Snoop Dogg), Moondog’s source of primo quality weed – including an exclusive plant from Jamaica. 

After the wedding, Moondog and Minnie go off driving, the results of which – since both were highly intoxicated – end them up in the hospital, Minnie dying soon thereafter.  She was apparently super rich, but her will puts Moondog’s half into escrow until he finishes his book of poetry, which he has been erratically contributing to with a typewriter.  In between dopey adventures – including a court-ordered stint in rebab, which he simply leaves with a fellow rehabber, Flicker (Zak Efron) – somehow he manages to finish the book of poetry, submit it for publishing, and satisfy the terms of Minnie’s will.  Martin Lawrence is also in here as Captain Wack, a Vietnam Vet (actually highly implausible given that, these days, Vietnam veterans are in their 70s) who gives dolphin tours on his boat but who can’t seem to tell dolphins from sharks, to his injury.

McConaughey did remark, that when making the film, almost all the “weed” is actually fake, some blend of oregano, etc.  However, in one scene, the weed provided by Snoop was, in fact, the real thing.   

As noted, this story is fiction.  How did Moondog hook up with Minnie in the first place?  It seems he was living in her huge mansion until the will freeze evicted him.  The rest of us don’t have rich spouses subsidizing our cannabis lifestyles.  I didn’t find the Beach Bum, Moondog, to be nearly as sympathetic as The Dude.   For all we know, Moondog is who Wooderson (McConaughey’s first role, in “Dazed and Confused”) eventually becomes.  Sadly, unlike “The Big Lebowski” and “Dazed and Confused”, this film doesn’t give us any memorable catch phrases.  

But hey, that might be just my opinion, man….

The Crown

 

Yesterday, 11/11, was Veteran’s Day, but I’ve already blogged about World War I, the global conflict which ended on that day in 1918.  And recently I watched Matthew McConaughey’s relatively recent film, “The Beach Bum”, though I’m pairing that up with the “The Big Lebowski” spinoff film, “The Jesus Rolls”, on its way from Netflix.  As it is, I recently finished watching season 4 of The Crown, the Netflix series about Queen Elizabeth II.  So I’ll comment about that.

The United Kingdom (UK = “Great Britain (England, Wales & Scotland) + Northern Ireland”) is a constitutional monarchy.  Nominally it has a King or Queen, plus various princes and princesses, but “supreme executive authority” does indeed derive from a “mandate from the masses”, so the real chief executive of the country is the Prime Minister, who is the head of whichever political party holds a majority in the House of Commons.  Right now that’s Boris Johnson, with the comically bad haircut – though it still beats Marc Davis, the owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. 

Anyhow.  The current royal family dates back to George I (1714-1727), the first king of the House of Hanover.  He is followed by George II (1727-1760), George III (1760-1820) (king during the American Revolution), George IV (1820-1830) (portrayed by Hugh Laurie in “The Black Adder”), William IV (1830-1837), Queen Victoria (1837-1901) (played by Jenna Coleman in the three season PBS series), Edward VII (1901-1910), George V (1910-1936), Edward VIII (1936-1936) (abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson (no, no relation to Homer), lived in the Bois de Boulogne outside Paris), George VI (1936-52), and now Queen Elizabeth II (1952-present).   Note that Edward VIII did not have any children with Wallis.

George VI was Edward VIII’s younger brother.  As such, he would have been expecting Edward VIII to take over as king from their father, George V, when he died, and Edward VIII’s children to inherit the throne after that.  E8’s abdication took G6 by surprise, he had no expectation or preparation for it.  He’s famously portrayed by Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech”.  In this series he’s played by Richard “Camelot” Harris’ son Jared, who these days is in “Foundation” (on Apple TV+).   Speaking of "The King's Speech", two actors from "The Crown" appear in that film, in different roles:  Helena Bonham Carter plays Queen Elizabeth herself, and Derek Jacobi plays the Archbishop of York.

The Crown starts off with G6 as King and Elizabeth and her younger sister Margaret as young girls.  They were old enough to experience World War II, and Elizabeth had to have a fairly quick training program to prepare her to be queen, as G6 smoked heavily and was in poor health, not expected to have the kind of long reign Queen Victoria had – and which E2 has now surpassed.  Claire Foy plays Elizabeth first as princess then as queen for the first two seasons, Matt Smith (of Dr. Who) plays Prince Philip in the first two seasons. 

Who’s who?

Well, first is Princess/Queen Elizabeth (S1/2: Claire Foy; S3/4 Olivia Colman).  Easily the star of the show.  She is conscientious about being a good Queen and knows her proper position relative to whoever happens to be Prime Minister at the time.  She also has to manage her younger sister Margaret, somewhat of a loose cannon, her relationship with Prince Philip, and later her sons Charles, Andrew and Edward, and daughter Anne.  Periodically the Prime Minister – mostly Harold Wilson – comes to ask her for advice.  Later, the PM is none other than Margaret Thatcher, so she finally has a female PM to face off against.  Thatcher is played by “X Files” veteran Gillian Anderson. 

Prince Philip (S1/2 Matt Smith; S3/4 Tobias Menzies) is the Queen’s Consort.  He’s her husband but somehow isn’t King despite being the husband of a Queen (apparently he was asked about this countless times).  I found the Matt Smith version to be kind of a cheating asshole and the later Tobias Menzies variant to be better at not playing the field and toning down the arrogance.  Since I knew Prince Philip only recently died, whatever else happened on the show, he would not be having any fatal accidents.

PP’s ancestry is half Greek, half German.  To makes matters more bizarre, his sister was a Nazi, and he grew up as a boy during the 1930s (S2/E9 Paterfamilias).  When she died in a plane crash, he had to attend her funeral in Nazi era Darmstadt, with all the pomp and arrogance the ever-evil Nazis could muster.  However, unlike his uncle-in-law Edward VIII, young Prince Philip did not fall under the spell of the Nazis and remained fairly normal.

Princess Margaret (S1/2 Vanessa Kirby; S3/4 Helena Bonham Carter).  Not in line to be Queen under any circumstances, that should have freed her up to do as she pleased, but if there is ONE lesson “The Crown” wants us to understand, it’s that the Royals have all sorts of seemingly arbitrary restrictions on what they can and cannot do, yet not being in actual control of the country don’t seem to enjoy nearly as many benefits as you would imagine.  In practice this worked out to vetoing her relationship with Peter Townsend – confusingly, NOT the guitarist for The Who – a dashing but married RAF officer.  She had to settle for a cynical and bisexual photographer, Lord Snowden (Ben Daniels), a relationship which crashed and burned in the 1970s.  In the first two seasons she’s played by the relatively babacious Vanessa Kirby, and in season 3 abruptly morphs into Helena Bonham Carter, an actress who bears zero resemblance to Kirby and is already well known in her own right.

Prince Charles (S3&4 Josh O’Connor).  Up until season 3, he’s just a boy.  There’s an episode where his schooling is at issue, Prince Philip wanting to send him up to a gloomy school in the Scottish highlands, Gordonstoun (S2/E9 Paterfamilias), where he himself went to school as boy during the 1930s, kind of a boot camp atmosphere so dreary and depressing that Prince Charles, as a father, made certain that his own boys William and Harry did not have to suffer the same fate.  By season 3 he’s more grown up, and learns Welsh to take his investiture in Wales, a part of Great Britain eager for some form of independence – at this point played by Josh O’Connor (S3/E6 Tywysog Cymru).

The biggest issue with Charles is his difficult relationship with Lady Diana (Emma Corrin) and Camilla Shand, later Parker-Bowles (Emerald Fennell).  Here’s where some critics take issue with the narrative presented by the show, claiming it pushes too much blame for the Charles-Diana issues on Charles and overstates his ongoing relationship with CPB.  What no one seems to deny is that Charles had some prior romantic relationship with CPB and she was his clear favorite – had he had his way, he would have married her and not Diana.  Moreover, the show acknowledges that Diana herself had a slew of lovers, and on the Australian tour could be extremely difficult herself – e.g. insisting they bring William, still a baby, along on the trip with them.  Regardless of how much effort each put into making the marriage work, it seems it was doomed from the start.

In fact, what with conspiracy theorist abundant everywhere about almost anything, there are a few convenient accidents which somehow didn’t occur.  Margaret couldn’t marry Townsend because his ex-wife was still alive.  Wouldn’t it have been convenient if that woman had an unfortunate accident?  Likewise, CPB remained a distraction, even after marrying Andrew Parker-Bowles – who himself was a part-time lover to Princess Anne (!!!).  If there was ever a woman with an obvious target on her back, it was Camilla.  As it is, she’s married to Charles today.  This is why conspiracy theories about the Royals being behind Diana's death in Paris in 1997 - after Charles and Diana had already divorced - are so implausible (as most conspiracy theories, by their nature, are).      

Princess Anne.  Of E2’s four children, the only girl.  She seems very much like her aunt Margaret, and of the four, the least spoiled and most realistic – at least as portrayed in the series by Erin Doherty.

Lord Mountbatten.  One of the more interesting characters in Season 3 was Lord Mountbatten, played by none other than Game of Thrones archvillain Charles “Tywin Lannister” Dance.  Were it not for the fact that Tywin Lannister was fully fleshed out in five novels before HBO began the series, I might suspect that Tywin Lannister, as portrayed by Dance, derives from Mountbatten.  Of course the reverse timing also throws this completely out of plausibility.   More likely is that Dance simply channeled the same arrogance and depth he brought to the Lannister role, to his portrayal of Lord Mountbatten.  Mountbatten is the brother of Princess Alice, the mother of Prince Philip, i.e. Prince Philip’s uncle. 

Edward VIII (S2 Alex Jennings, S3 Derek Jacobi).   The controversial 10 month king.  My father told me a lot about him, though I’m not sure why.  Maybe it was because he (E8, not my father), and Wallis Simpson lived in the Bois de Boulogne, which was close by to the US Embassy compound in Neuilly where we were living – though we arrived there in 1979, seven years after E8 died.  My own inclination would have been to cast Tim Curry as E8.    

By the way.  As noted, E8 did not have children.  So far as I understand, this means that if he had not abdicated in 1936 and remained king, but died as he did in 1972, Queen Elizabeth would still become queen, just in 1972 rather than 1952 – twenty years later.  Well then – that’s a topic for another alternate history novel….

Prime Ministers.  As Season 4 ends, Margaret Thatcher has thoroughly alienated everyone in Parliament and the general public as to lose her position as Prime Minister.  Again, critics claim the show overstates her unpopularity, but no one can deny that, regardless of the circumstances, Thatcher did leave office in 1990. 

At the time of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1952 the Prime Minister was Winston Churchill, the famous wartime leader, played in the show by John Lithgow.  His successor was Anthony Eden (Conservative) (1955-57) (played by Jeremy Northam), Harold MacMillan (Conservative) (1957-63) (played by Anton Lessser), Harold Wilson (Labour) (1964-1970) (played by Jason Watkins), Edward Heath (Conservative) (1970-74) (played by Michael Maloney). Harold Wilson (Labour) (1974-1976), James Callaghan (Labour) (1976-1979), and then Thatcher in 1979.  As noted last week, this system of government often results in prime ministers serving multiple nonconsecutive terms as the parties’ relative fortunes at the polls and scandals push them in and out.  In our own country, Grover Cleveland (1884-88 and 1892-96) enjoys the distinction of being the only president serving multiple nonconsecutive terms.  We’ll see if Trump runs again in 2024.  Down here in Virginia, Terry MacAuliffe failed to win re-election – Virginia allows governors to serve unlimited nonconsecutive terms.  I’ve yet to see a pair of candidates rotate in and out to take advantage of that.    

The Queen took a policy of not publicly praising or criticizing the Prime Minister.  As a practical matter, the show seems to indicate that her personal favorites were Churchill and Harold Wilson.  It seems to show her as neutral towards Thatcher, with critics noting that the relationship was a bit warmer than portrayed.  Or it may be that Thatcher’s portrayal by Anderson was a bit harsh – similar to complaints about Prince Charles.  Perhaps so, but in neither case do the unfair portrayals work to improve the Queen’s image. 

The US.  Normally, the responsibility for dealing with foreign countries rests with the Prime Minister.  One exception is “The Commonwealth”, the loose aggregate of the UK’s closely associated countries, mainly Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and numerous other former colonies which are now independent, sovereign countries.  Of these, the United States is NOT part of the Commonwealth.  We had a brief war in 1812-1815, the UK remained neutral during our own Civil War (1861-65), alternate history novels to the contrary notwithstanding, and we were on the same side in WWI (1914-18) and WWII (1939-45).  My own subjective inclinations are to be highly favorable to all the English speaking countries, especially our buddies to the north, Canada, the UK & Ireland, and Australia/New Zealand.  But hey – your mileage may vary. 

However, when it came time to sending troops to Vietnam in 1965, the Labour government under Harold Wilson was NOT cooperative in approving of our adventure, much to the anger and resentment of US President Lyndon Johnson, my mom’s former boss.  SO when the UK needed a bailout, LBJ (played by Clancy Brown) was very unsympathetic.  It was left to Princess Margaret (S3/E2 Margaretology) to do what Harold Wilson and his Minions could not:  charm LBJ into loosening the purse strings and help out our buddies across the Atlantic – via exchanging naughty limericks with LBJ, a somewhat earthy endeavor well out of the Queen’s comfort zone.  FYI, only Australia sent troops to Vietnam to help us out. 

Game of Thrones.  I’ve noticed a few Game of Thrones actors in here.  There’s a brief episode where the Queen, who loves horses, visits Kentucky to research the state of the art in horsebreeding and equine technology (S3/E4 Coup), and one of the characters is played by Julian Glover, aka Maester Pycelle.  I’ve mentioned Charles Dance already, as Lord Mountbatten.  And Prince Philip, in seasons 3 and 4, is played by Tobias Menzies, better known to GOT fans as Edmure Tully. 

Overall the show does a remarkable job of portraying not only Queen Elizabeth II herself, as she grows into the role of Queen and all the issues it involves, but also the royal family.  As noted in my prior blog, for all their wealth and prestige, living in castles and not having to hold down real jobs – apparently the royalty is actually supported with taxes levied on ordinary UK taxpayers – the royalty often have to deal with a whole range of serious restrictions on their freedom which these same ordinary UK taxpayers don’t have to worry about.  Prince Charles and Princess Margaret were both bludgeoned into unhappy marriages, and even the Queen had to work at her own relationship with Prince Philip.  On the other hand, with the PM exercising real control over the country, the actual power wielded by the Queen and her family is highly attenuated – to the point where their lives are rarely in any actual danger.  Lord Mountbatten’s death by an IRA bomb on his boat seems to be the exception which proves the rule.  Even the disgruntled, unemployed man, Fagan, who broke into Buckingham Palace not once, but TWICE, only wanted to talk to the Queen, as he was well aware that she was not directly responsible for his misfortune; his local MP was Conservative and highly unsympathetic to his plight. 

Update 5/18/23:

Season 5.   The narrative continues from 1991-1997.  Cast changes aplenty:  Imelda "Dolores Umbridge" Staunton as QE2, Jonathan "High Sparrow" (Game of Thrones) Pryce as Prince Philip, Dominic West (McNulty on "The Wire") takes over as Prince Charles, Elizabeth Debicki as Lady Diana, and Olivia Williams as Camilla Parker-Bowles.  In addition we get Johnny Lee Miller (from "Trainspotting" and more recently playing Sherlock Holmes with Lucy Liu) as John Major, the PM who replaced Margaret Thatcher, and both Mohamed (father) and Dodi (son) Fayed entering the picture for Diana.  

Here the narrative focuses on the drama between Charles and Diana, especially when Diana goes public with all her bitching about the royal family.   West does a good job of making Charles more likable than he was in prior seasons.  However, the narrative stops short of Diana's fatal crash in Paris, so I imagine that will come up in Season 6.    

….

Five Republics and Two Empires

 

With le writer’s bloque tormenting me yet again, and finding most of my initial inspirations dashed by seeing I’ve already commented on them, I’ll fall back to my usual subject:  FRANCE, from the Revolution to the present day.

First Republic (1793-1804).  We all remember Bastille Day, July 14, 1789, marking the beginning of the French Revolution.  But Louis XVI didn’t lose his head to the guillotine until January 1793.  For that four year interim period, the French experimented with a constitutional monarchy, giving the people some degree of power, taking that away from Louis XVI.  But when the Terror erupted, no one was safe – not even its own leaders, Danton and Robespierre.  Thereafter, France experimented with a variety of different systems, collectively referred to as the First Republic, which ended with First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte. 

First Empire (1804-1815).  Napoleon I crowned himself Emperor of France and then went about conquering most of Europe, including Spain, Italy, what passed for Germany back then (effectively ending the Holy Roman Empire), Poland, and much of Russia.  As with Hitler, Big Cold Russia defeated Napoleon, and at Waterloo he was finally conquered once and for all.  Thus the First Empire only had ONE emperor.   Napoleon’s troops in Egypt brought back hashish, introducing France to Le Weed. 

We Three Kings.   Louis XVIII (1815-1824), Charles X (1824-1830) (both younger brothers of Louis XVI), Louis Philippe (1830-1848) (descendent of Louis XIV’s younger brother).  We’re familiar with the major revolutions of 1848, wherein the Communist Manifesto was written (Marx & Engels).

Second Republic (1848-1852).  Napoleon’s nephew, Louis Napoleon, who had lived in exile in Switzerland and England, finally came home and ran for the first elections after Louis Philippe abdicated.  As a somewhat of a celebrity, LP won the election and started the Second Republic, being its only president.

Second Empire (1852-1870).  In 1852 Louis Napoleon had sufficiently consolidated enough power and prestige to get away with declaring himself Emperor, Napoleon III, in 1852.  [Napoleon II was Napoleon I’s son, who died in captivity in Austria]. Thus began the Second Empire, which like the first one only had one emperor.  N3 went off to Mexico, colonized Indochina, got France involved in the Crimean War, but his most important legacy was expanding Paris to its current size and nature with the help of his right hand man, Baron Haussmann.  This period also has distinctive architecture, some of which made it here to the USA. 

Franco-Prussian War (1870-71).  Bismarck successfully engineered a series of wars, first against Denmark (1864), then Austria (1866), and finally against France (1870-71).  Germany, not quite unified but dominated by Prussia, defeated the French at Sedan and then proceeded to besiege fresh, brand new bigger Paris, which finally surrendered in January 1871, N3 himself having been captured at Sedan with his forces.  Then from March to May 1871 was the Paris Commune, in which Paris itself was taken over by communists for two months, finally put down by Adolphe Thiers. 

Third Republic (1871-1940).  With the Commune crushed and its leaders executed in the Parc Monceau, France could start this republic thing going again, which this time around lasted until World War II.  The first of 14 presidents was the one who crushed the Commune, Thiers, with the last being Albert Lebrun in 1940.  This period covers La Belle Epoque of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. 

World War II (1939-1945).  Naturally the Germans inconveniently invaded France in May 1940 and defeated the French, resulting in a four year occupation.  Some put Petain as the final leader of the Third Republic, though as a Nazi Puppet that sounds a bit strange. 

Fourth Republic (1948-1958).  With the Germans pushed back where they belonged, far eastern German given to Poland, and the country itself divided into east and west (until 1991), France could get back to being a normal country again.  For its fourth attempt at democracy, it picked a confusing system of parliamentary democracy like Britain’s, in which the head of state was a prime minister, the leader of the majority party.  This resulted in some 21 prime ministers between 1947 (Ramadier) and 1958 (De Gaulle) – some serving multiple nonconsecutive terms alternating as the majority party bounced back and forth, at which point the French figured this system might work well enough across the English Channel, but fell short of expectations in France itself.  The last prime minister of the Fourth Republic was Charles De Gaulle.

Fifth Republic (1958-present).  And the first President of the Fifth Republic, which is still going on today, was Charles De Gaulle.  He was followed by Georges “Weird Pipe Museum” Pompidou, Valery Giscard D’Estaing (President when we moved to Paris in 1979), Francois Mitterand, Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, Francois Hollande, and now Emmanuel Macron, whose wife we saw at the Louvre in October 2017.

Record Stores in 2021

 

Lately due to legal issues I’d rather not discuss herein, I’ve had a surplus of free time.  Taking care of things which need to be done is a priority, of course, but even so I still have time left over.  I’ve been going around the DC area looking at various record stores.  Sadly, the results are not pretty.

First off, with the exception of CD Cellar, in Falls Church, these record stores are only selling vinyl.  CD Cellar does sell CDs, but these are excellent quality used CDs – though I was able to purchase the latest version of Dark Side of the Moon, which is brand new, and has a 5.1 Surround layer on the CD which can be read by BluRay players like mine. 

Now there seem to be three types of vinyl.  I’ll call them Original Vinyl, Premium Reissues, and New Releases.  Original vinyl is the used material originally released from 1948 to about 1988, when vinyl was replaced by compact discs (CD) as the primary format for music.  These albums are 140 grain and fairly flimsy, but may sound acceptable if in good shape on a decent, non-audiophile turntable.  Premium Reissues are 180 grain versions of albums originally released on vinyl.  New Releases include brand new material released on vinyl, which seems to be the norm these days, and also reissues of material originally released on CD from 1988 to the present.  These are my terms, not industry terms.

With very few exceptions, almost all newly released music is released on digital format and CD, possibly also vinyl.  There are some limited cases where new music is released on vinyl and not CD, with or without a download code for MP3s.  In that case you can download the MP3s, upload them to iTunes, create a playlist, and then burn the MP3s to a CD-R, giving you a CD version, though CD-Rs are not as good quality as a CD. 

We need to realize that material originally released on CD was NOT intended for analog reproduction, which includes current releases.  My preference is for CDs.  Thus when it comes to buying vinyl, I am almost exclusively buying premium reissues.  A few I’ve been looking for were Wishbone Ash, Argus – self-titled, Pilgrimage and IV are all on 180 grain; Hawkwind, Doremi Fasol Latido; and Ozzy Osbourne, Speak of the Devil.  I believe Argus was reissued in such miniscule quantity that all copies were immediately purchased. 

These modern day record stores seem to very small, maybe just a room.  Hub City Vinyl in Hagerstown, Maryland, is actually fairly big, just a big, large room with lots of windows.  Many, like Hub City, also sell turntables and t-shirts.  Their selections generally seem to be 60% original vinyl, 20% premium reissues, and 20% new releases.   That being the case, I’m fairly disappointed by each of these, and CD Cellar is the only one I visit regularly.  It helps that it’s next door to Action Music, a guitar/amp store with a remarkable selection of used guitars and amps.  If I ever wanted to buy a Mesa Boogie combo, I know where to find it.

I realize that it’s almost impossible for a brick & mortar store to compete with Amazon and other online retailers, plus streaming services such as Spotify draw off people who don’t care about sound quality and don’t care about having some physical media.  However, I enjoy walking into a store and leaving with something in my possession – well, after buying it.  Sadly, FNAC – the huge electronics store in Paris, France – doesn’t exist in the US.  When I visited Paris in October 2017 I saw it was selling vinyl.  I didn’t see if it was selling CDs.

Let’s review the past, shall we?

Kemp Mill Records & Sam Goody.  These were the chain stores I remember.  Records, CDs, cassettes, they sold all of these.  And then went out of business.  Sam Goody seemed to be located in malls, and Kemp Mill Records were in strip malls.  They were fairly small.

Borders, Barnes & Noble, & Best Buy.  Both of these used to sell music, and both sell vinyl (new releases) now.  Barnes & Noble still sells CDs, though a limited selection. 

Target & Walmart.  If you want to buy a CD in a store today, these are your only options, and by nature their selection is limited to the narrowest, best selling items.  CD Cellar has a huge selection, but it’s all used, sadly. 

Honorable Mention.  Amoeba Music and Vintage Vinyl.  In L.A. there is a huge store, Amoeba Music, on Sunset Blvd, taking up an entire block.  I visited there in summer 2010.  If you ever go to L.A., by all means visit this place.  In Ford, New Jersey, up Route 1-9 up from Rutgers, was Vintage Vinyl.  VV even had bands played live there, but I never caught a show.  I did buy the California Jam bootleg of Black Sabbath, on vinyl, at this place.  Sadly, it’s now closed and out of business. 

The Hitman's Bodyguard's Wife

 

While I’m loathe to fall back on simply reviewing whatever movie I happened to have watched before Friday, in this case a pair of movies was remarkable enough to warrant my review in this context.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017).  The original film starts things off.  Michael Bryce (Ryan “Deadpool” Reynolds) is a top level executive bodyguard in the present day.  However, his career took a hit – quite literally – when his client, Kurosawa, was abruptly assassinated despite his best, most diligent efforts to protect him, by some unknown assassin. 

Meanwhile, a particularly nasty Byelorussian dictator, Dukhovich (Gary the Old Man), is on trial in The Hague, Netherlands, for war crimes, mainly various Einsatzgruppen style massacres 60 something years after the original series.  He has managed to wipe out all witnesses, except one: a hitman, Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson).  Bryce winds up escorting Kincaid across England to Dover, by ferry to Holland, through Amsterdam and then to The Hague to beat a 5 p.m. deadline to testify, otherwise the case against Dukhovich will fail and he’ll be released, presumably to resume his prior position as dictator and mass murderer – an outcome most would consider suboptimal.

Naturally, Dukhovich has some moles in the UN/Interpol hierarchy who give his Russian henchmen fairly accurate information about Bryce & Kincaid’s whereabouts at any given point, so the quest is almost a continuous shootfest of bloodshed, car crashes, explosions, etc. all the way to The Hague. 

By the way – Kincaid has a provocatively attractive wife, Sonia (Salma Hayek) whose release from a maximum security womens’ prison will be a reward for his testimony against Dukhovich. 

By now I’ve seen countless of these type of films, the most annoying being the obvious implausibility of all these crashes and deaths, clearly an orgy of CGI.   In fact, it’s so implausible it becomes de facto science fiction rather than action.  Moreover, Jackson is just as arrogant and “my dick is bigger than yours” as ever, especially having the ever-hot Hayek as his wife.  However, when the dust clears, all the casings fall, and the guns are dropped on the ground, I found it as entertaining as any of the other films of this nature and enjoyable for that reason.

The Hitman’s Wife's Bodyguard (2021).  Now Sonia is out of prison, ostensibly celebrating her honeymoon with Kincaid, which seems to be spent – along with Bryce – attempting to foil another ubervillain, Aristotle Papdopolous, a super rich Greek rich guy (Antonio Banderas) who plans on destroying Europe’s power grid with a virus from his yacht.  We also learn who Bryce’s step-father, Bryce, Sr., is…. Played by Morgan Freeman.  So here you get SLJ AND Morgan Freeman in the same film.  Not a bad combination.   The narrative begins with Bryce trying to enjoy his bodyguard license suspension in peace and quiet, predictably disrupted when Sonia shanghai’s him into rescuing Kincaid, who has been kidnapped by the Italian Mob – given a face –“Carlo” by Syrio Forel, who we know from Game of Thrones as Arya’s fencing instructor.  Carlo was the UN’s confidential source on Aristotle’s diabolical plans, so Kincaid, Bryce and Sonia wind up in the middle of the whole mess. 

Oh, need I mention that Sonia wants children, and relentlessly harasses Darius about his apparent inability to impregnate her, so the dialogue between the two is predictably saucy.  And the issue of whose eggs or whose sperm is at fault is quite explicitly discussed - as are their heroic, high octane multiple orgasm attempts to conceive.  As you might imagine, all such attempts occur off-camera, the audience treated to the subsequent bickering about her NOT missing her period.

This time around Sonia is front and center in the narrative – and it turns out she had a prior relationship with Aristotle, until she fell off his yacht, suffered amnesia, and married Kurt Russell.  Oops, wrong movie - and part of the charm of this film is explicitly acknowledging lifting the plot of the Goldie Hawn version. 

What’s a little frustrating is that, as hot as she obviously is, Hayek isn’t showing any more skin than she did in “Dusk Til Dawn” – in fact, far less, despite the fact that we know in real life she’s proud to still have such a killer figure at her current age.  For that matter, Christina Hendricks, the buxom redhead in “Mad Men”, “Tin Star”, and now “Good Girls”, doesn’t even seem to strip down to a bikini, much less nudity, despite – or perhaps because of – her obvious assets.  She had a sex (sorry, have to laugh here) scene in “Tin Star” in which she’s fully clothed.  Kind of defeats the purpose of having a voluptuous actress if she isn’t going to even get down to lingerie or a swimsuit.  Anyhow.  She does add considerably to the entertainment value of the film, so overall I’d say her presence is more enjoyable than frustrating.  I suppose if we want mainstream actresses showing skin, there’s Game of Thrones, though none of the women therein can boast such figures as Hayek or Hendricks. 

While I'm on the topic of "fake sex in movies" - though "Game of Thrones" is not a movie - there was a recent film with Jason "Ted Lasso" Sudeikis and Alison "Annie from Community" Brie called "Sleeping With Other People".  It's a fairly raunchy film with several scenes of simulated sex (always avoid alliteration).  The characters involved are partly nude, but no amount of suspension of disbelief will convince us that mainstream actors are actually having sex on camera for a film.  So it's a bit weird.  Having said so, having seen Alison Brie as semi-innocent in "Community", and Jason Sudeikis kind of too clueless to be a stud in "Ted Lasso", seeing them both take overtly provocative roles like this is a bit of a novelty.   I suppose your mileage may vary.

Will there be a third movie?  Actually, I’m still waiting for “Deadpool 3”[ Deadpool 3 release date, trailer, cast and more | The Digital Fix], which presumably would keep Reynolds busy to the exclusion of Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife’s Gynecologist.   We’ll see. 

Ted Lasso and Major League

 

Season 1 of Ted Lasso came out in August 2020, and season 2 was released more recently, both on Apple TV.  That streaming service also gives us For All Mankind, the alternate history story, in two seasons, which speculates what might have happened had the Soviets beat us to the Moon in 1969.  In real life, despite having a head start with Sputnik in 1957 and Yuri Gargarin in 1961, we caught up to them and beat them to the moon, at which point the Sovs then implausibly denied they were even trying to compete with us.  There’s also Foundation, which is based on the Isaac Asimov stories – which I have not read.

Ted Lasso.  This features Jason Sudeikis as the central character.  It seems a fictional Premier League (top tier) soccer team, AFC Richmond, from London, wound up being owned by a vindictive woman, Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) out to destroy the team out of spite for her ex-husband, who cheated on her and now has a baby on the way with his 20-something sex kitten.  So she hires Ted Lasso, a college football coach from Kansas City, USA of all places, with absolutely ZERO prior experience in soccer, let alone a Premier League team. 

Lasso appears to be a lightweight, annoyingly optimistic and naïve, with as little clue about London and England as he does about soccer.  He brings his assistant coach (Beard, and he has a beard, Brendan Hunt) along with him.  The local fans are highly skeptical of his chances (WANKER is the universal cheer at the local pub, not meant endearingly) as are the players and the local press.  Lasso also learns, firsthand, how brutal not only the English tabloids can be, but also mainstream journalists as well, e.g. Trent Crimm from the Independent (James Lance).  It seems literally everyone has written him off.

Remarkably, he rises to the challenge, and somehow manages to navigate all these obvious issues, partly with his happy-go-lucky charm but also with a fair amount of strength of character which eventually cuts through the incessant cynicism.  It turns out he has some underlying issues which make his character not only more complex but also more sympathetic.  Season 2 picks up with the team finally turning things around, partly with the help of a therapist.  What’s interesting is that though AFC Richmond itself is fictional, the team is up against real-life Premier League rivals such as Liverpool, Manchester City, Tottenham, West Ham, Aston Villa, etc., all names which soccer fans are sure to recognize. 

I also find the array of characters to be highly entertaining.  Higgins (Jeremy Swift), the owner’s XO, bumped around without a permanent office; Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), the abusive and cynical ex-player who winds up a sports anchor – with NO filter! – and then back on the team as an assistant coach; his GF, Keely (Juno Temple), very cute (!!!); Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), one of these spoiled, highly talented but egotistical players who left the team earlier with extreme prejudice only to have Man City dump him – and then no one else will take him except his former team, with whom he’s already burned all his bridges and has to crawl back begging for his old job back.  ("Be careful who you piss on, on your way up, as you'll be meeting them on your way down...") That’s just a few…

I’ll spare anyone spoilers or specific details of the plot and simply advise:  you may well find the modest fee for Apple TV to be worth it for this show alone, never mind the aforementioned sci-fi shows which are worthy in their own right as well.

Major League.  My buddy Dave advised me that the “team sabotaged by a vindictive female owner” plot was the premise of this 1989 film about the Cleveland Indians.  I saw it when it came out but I don’t think I’d seen it again before now, when I took another look at it. 

In this case the owner, Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) is angling to move the Indians from cold, dreary Cleveland to warm, sunny Miami.  The catch is that the team is bound by contract to remain in Cleveland…UNLESS their attendance figures fall below a certain number.   So she deliberately assembles a motley crew of renegades, washouts, and misfits deliberately calculated to result in a last place finish.  The team includes catcher Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) whose knees sidelined him earlier; the temperamental pitcher Ricky Vaughn (Charlie Sheen); pampered, rich third baseman Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen, aka Arnie Becker from “L.A. Law”), voodoo shaman Cerrano from Cuba (errr.. I thought voodoo was from Haiti, not Cuba, but whatever) (Dennis Haysbert); and flashy Willie Mays Hayes (Wesley Snipes).  Rene Russo plays Berenger’s love interest, and Bob Uecker is basically playing himself as the team’s announcer,  Harry Doyle.

I have to marvel at how much I remember from this film despite only having seen it once.  Dorn’s wife catches him slipping away behind a TV commentator at a party with another woman, so she seduces Vaughn at a bar.  When housemate Taylor sees her leaving Vaughn’s bed the next morning, Vaughn says, “honest, I had no idea who she was!”  

Getting back to the basic premise, eventually the team learns of Rachel’s ulterior motive and decides to pull out all the stops and get to the Series for the team’s first title since 1948 – and winds up against the Yankees, of all teams.  I would think that once the team entered playoff contention the attendance would surpass the threshold which would allow it to walk away from the lease with the city.  Certainly once it made the playoffs itself, you could expect the stadium to be mostly full.  Either way, it’s an entertaining story, made more so by watching Sheen’s later work – “Two and a Half Men” – and indulging in the Washington Nationals in recent seasons with my brother. 

Actually, the two wind up as opposites of “Fever Pitch”.  The original featured Colin Firth (with buddy Mark Strong) as die hard Arsenal supporters in London, with the remake featuring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore as Red Sox fans.  

Game of Thrones Revisited

 

I originally blogged about this. Chris' Blog: Game of Thrones (formula57l.blogspot.com).  That was in December 2012, meaning I had only seen season 2, and season 3 hadn’t even come out yet.  Since that time all 8 seasons have aired.  These were based on books written by George R. R. Martin, basically the Beatles’ producer with an extra R, a beard, and a few pounds (visually, no one will confuse the two).  Not sure if GRRM has any interest in the Beatles. 

A few years ago, they had a Game of Thrones Exhibition in Manhattan, NYC.  Among many other intriguing exhibits was a replica of the Iron Throne, which I sat in and had my picture taken.  

Books.  A Game of Thrones (#1) (1996), A Clash of Kings (#2) (1998); A Storm of Swords (#3) (2000), A Feast For Crows (#4) (2005), and A Dance With Dragons (#5) (2011).  Book #6, The Winds of Winter, is STILL not out yet. 

Series (HBO).  Season 1 (2011), Season 2 (2012), Season 3 (2013), Season 4 (2014), Season 5 (2015), Season 6 (2016), Season 7 (2017), and Season 8 (2019).  Given that Martin has still not finished book 6, seasons 6, 7 and 8 had to be done without the benefit of the actual books, though the story is that Martin gave them enough basics on his intentions for them to craft three full seasons of material.  My subjective impression is that now that the full series has actually aired, Martin’s incentive to finish the books is highly attenuated.  As it was, when seasons 1 through 5 were airing, it seems half the viewing audience had actually read the books and had some idea what was going to happen, the other half NOT reading the books and saying, “SHH!!! Don’t tell me!”  Whether it was because these are people who don’t read things without pictures – unless they’re actually paid to do so for work – or whether they simply didn’t want the whole thing spoiled, I couldn’t say.  I count myself among the many who actually DO read fiction as a recreational activity.

I read all 5 books and watched all 8 seasons when they were originally broadcast on HBO.   After Season 5, even the book readers like myself no longer had the benefit of source material, so everyone was left wondering what was going to happen next.

Probably the #1 distinguishing feature of GOT is the vulnerability of major characters to swift dispatch.  With Star Trek, the original series, the running joke is that if an away team goes down to a planet with major characters and some new guy in a red shirt we’ve never seen before, guess who’s going to get killed?  Hint, it won’t be Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, etc.  At least the Next Generation actually killed off Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby) fairly early on.   Martin wanted to keep us in suspense:  NO character was safe, even the most beloved ones such as Brann Stark, Khal Lego, or Frodo.  Who knows, even Tony Stark might get killed if his “iron suit” proved vulnerable to poison or the Dothraki.

PLOT HOLE.  I’m re-watching the series again, and finished Season 1.  I’m picking up a few things I missed the first time around.  The 800 pound gorilla here is the Baratheon kids.  We haven’t seen younger siblings Tommen or Myrcella yet, but eldest child, and the heir to the throne, Joffrey, is certainly here. 

The King is Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy), of the Baratheon clan, whose “animal” is the stag.  His younger brothers are Stannis and Renly.  Stannis shows up in Season 2, but we’ve already seen Renly (Gethen Anthony).  The Queen is Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), of the Lannister clan, insanely rich but also nasty and cynical.  All the Baratheons have black hair and blue eyes, while all the Lannisters – with the curious exception of Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) - have blonde hair.  That includes Cersei, her twin brother Jaime (Nicolai Coster-Waldau), and practically all the others.  The head of the Lannister family is Tywin (Charles Dance), though what’s left of his blonde hair is now grey.

As noted in my earlier blog, the good guys are the Starks, the family furthest north, whose animal is the wolf.  The kids actually do come across and adopt wolves as pets – again, didn’t see any stags with the Baratheons, lions with the Lannisters, bears with Ser Jorah Mormont or his father, the commander of the Night’s Watch, and we certainly won’t hold our breaths waiting to see any “krakens” with the Greyjoys when they finally show up in Season 2, aside from hapless Theon. 

As the story starts, the prior Hand (executive officer) of Robert Baratheon has died mysteriously, of poisoning.  It turns out he was investigating this bizarre business of Robert’s kids with Cersei all having blonde hair.  As Robert trusts his old war buddy Ned Stark (Sean Bean, also Boromir in “Lord of the Rings”) to tell him “NO” every now and then, he asks Ned to take over as Hand.  Doing so, Ned picks up where John Arryn left off, likewise discovering the truth.  He even confronts Cersei about this, who remarkably admits she has been sleeping with Jaime and that Robert was always too drunk to properly impregnate her, she “finished him off by other means”, presumably orally – which we all know doesn’t result in pregnancy.   And yet it’s left to Arryn and Ned Stark to realize something is going on.

Robert wasn’t particularly stupid.  Not only would he suspect something when Joffrey bumped out with blonde hair, certainly he should have suspected something when Tommen and Myrcella did too – and all his own offspring by various whores and side chicks had black hair – as did Stannis and Renly, his brothers. 

Then there’s this business of failing to “get the job done” with Cersei.  He knows he needs an heir.  And while Lyanna Stark was his first choice as bride, and Rhaegar Targaryen was Cersei’s crush, they both ended up together.  Boo hoo.  If there’s one thing the royalty knows, is that they have little or no choice in who they wind up married to – thus a fairly lax standard in allowing extramarital affairs.  The stupid thing is, Robert’s tendency to whore around behind Cersei’s back – while Cersei was enjoying her brother’s intimacy – was not mutually exclusive with actually spending some sober time making sure Cersei was well and truly pregnant with his own offspring inside her.  And if he was only achieving happy ending down her throat, should he really be surprised when Joffrey didn’t wind up with black hair? 

Among the various different characters we meet in season 1, my favorites are Tyrion – who “drinks and knows things” – and Varys (Conleth Hill), the eunuch.   He spars off with Peytr Baelish (Aidan Gillen), aka Littlefinger, who runs the brothels in King’s Landing, the capital.  Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) is also fairly compelling.  We haven’t even seen Arya’s transformation, or Brann’s, nor have we met Brienne of Tarth.  Plot holes big or small, the show has a remarkable cast of characters, and the casting was practically flawless.   Those of us who have seen it already can check them all out on Netflix (albeit only on DVD, sorry) and those who haven’t should finally get with the program and see for themselves what the fuss is all about….